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Talk:Aftercast delay
Aftercast Aftercast is 100%, absolutely, certainly, and exactly what everyone calls it. If you Google '"guild wars" aftercast' you'll see hits all over tons of GW sites. --Fyren 00:38, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :That's an argument for making a redirect. Do you have an argument for why "aftercast" is an appropriate label for it? --Karlos 01:00, 4 October 2006 (CDT) ::What's the point of this? You reverted what I did. Fun stuff. I don't care if everyone on the net calls the skill inventory "skill list" and you know that. Aftercast is NOT a proper English word. The right expression is cool down. --Karlos 01:04, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :::No, that's an argument for us to name it what (lets try bold this time) everyone else has in the absence of an official term. Did you not notice how many different editors had touched all those articles/made all the edits without even a discussion about what we should call the phenomena? --Fyren 01:13, 4 October 2006 (CDT) ::::Again, the expression is NOT proper english, so I don't really care about the numbers you keep trying to indicate. Aftercast means a cast that happens after something. Just like aftershock is a shock that comes after an original shock. How about you google the word "aftercast" alone and see how many people in the world use it to mean something that happens AFTER a cast. Every usage not created by the "l337" generation is "a cast that happens after something." Skill cool down is NOT another cast. It's not a cast that happens after the original cast. Such a name IS wrong. Can you please stick to that discussion and tell me how the name is NOT wrong. I do not really care for the sheer multitude of people who would call "drop rates" something like "farmology." Drop rate is a word we made up, and if all the net called it "farmology" we would not have had the article under farmology. A redirect? Yes. The article name of something in game has to make sense english wise (especially one we are making up) as long as it's not something labeled in the game. --Karlos 01:25, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :::::There need be no reason beyond everyone calls it that. If everyone in the game called it farmology, then yes, we would call it farmology. Calling it something other than aftercast would make it more confusing for people even if there was a redirect. --Fyren 01:41, 4 October 2006 (CDT) ::::::Then that is your stand, not what I believe we have been doing on this wiki. I believe that unless there is an in-game or official name for an item that we not only have to find the "popular" term, but also a "correct" term. As I said, aftercast is linguistically wrong. Just state in the "cool down" (or whatever other correct name article) that it's commonly referred to as "aftercast." ::::::For a historical precedent, see talk:Collectable drop. --Karlos 01:51, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :::::::If you ask someone "what do you call things collectors give you?" they'll say "uh..." and then guess "collector items?" There may be some shrugging and "I don't know" mumbling involved. They're items collectors give you so that might be the first thing someone comes up with. If you ask them "what do you call the delay after some skills in which you perform any action?" they'll answer "aftercast." If you asked "what else is it called?" they'll say "nothing, it's aftercast." In the collector case, there was no clear cut, singular answer. For this there is. Cool down, in particular, is a horrible choice as it's used (at least) in various Blizzard games to mean "recharge." --Fyren 02:15, 4 October 2006 (CDT) ::::::::I second the 'if we called it farmology, it'd BE farmology' notion. English has MANY specialized subsets of words that rarely see use outside of a given context, which may not be listed in a dictionary of more conventional language. Specialized words in a given scientific field, for example. :::::::::It is the very nature of English to grow and evolve, adding on new words to fit a specific need, often starting out used by a small group of people, and spreading into common usage. Can we make do with existing words? Generally, yes, but English wouldn't be nearly as colourful as it is today without new innovations. ::::::::As for why 'aftercast'? I couldn't say for sure, but... when people say 'cool down' in Guild Wars, it tends to refer to a period of time where you can't do much because you either have no energy, or your skills are recharging. Perhaps the specialized term, 'aftercast', evolved to differentiate itself from those types of cool-downs. 'Aftercast' generally refers to, "The period of time following the successful completion of a spell where the caster is unable to take any kind of action, including movement." And even if it had a meaning directly contrary to the independent meanings of the morphemes contained within, it wouldn't be the first time. English is a convoluted, complicated language. I like it that way, personally. :::::::::And in regards to whether or not this word is in common usage elsewhere, instead of googling 'aftercast', try 'aftercast delay'. You'll find it's mentioned a fair bit more in the context of games, and significantly more relevant. Which is to say, if this wasn't simply created for Guild Wars, and is actually already an established term, then is there any reason to debate this further? ::::::::Just for the record, while on a less specialized wiki, such as the official, non-specific English one, I'd support using a more generalized term. But for one focused on the game itself, where the word is in such common usage, I favour the use of Aftercast. However, I'm not exactly a frequent wiki-editor, preferring forums, so whatever happens, as long as the term is mentioned, and clearly explained, it's not something I'm going to complain about. (Hope no one minds the use of alternating margin depth to distinguish paragraphs)Merengue 02:27, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :::::::::It should really be called "after-cast delay" or "after-cast animation" IMHO hadz 02:38, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :::::::::No, the precedent is very clear and one that makes sense, "Collector item" (which was the ONLY thing anyone ever used to refer to it) was misleading because it was not clear if it was the collectable drop or the collector reward just by looking at the word. Likewise, aftercast (if you don't now what that is) does NOT imply the delay after casting a spell in any normal usage of the english language I ever came across. It means the casting of somethingafter something else. It implies the wrong meaning. You guys are talking about the bazillion people who still call it aftercast and how they will manage to survive, well, just like the bazillion people who called collectable drops collector items. :::::::::"After-cast delay" or "Post-activation delay" is crystal clear on what it means I would be fine with that. It is the delay after casting/activation. I am not lobbying for cool down, cool down is what I use. Don't really care what WoW does with it. I am, however, lobbying against "aftercast" and I have yet to see any argument how "aftercast" in regular English usage would mean "the delay that follows a cast." I am sorry Hadz (or whoever embedded that comment about the English language), we are not Meriam-Webster, we're not going to document and formalize everyday onnovations in the English language. As it stands now, in the English I know, aftershock is NOT the delay after the shock, an afterburner is not the delay after burning, an afterthought is NOT the delay after the thought, ... etc. --Karlos 03:13, 4 October 2006 (CDT) ::Just to add fuel to the fire, here are some results from some Google searches: ::* Aftercast Guild Wars results in 1,210 matches ::* "after cast" Guild Wars results in 829 matches ::* "cool down" Guild Wars results in 33,700 matches ::Granted, I didn't evalluate the quality of the match results - although the first several on each search seemed to be used in the relevant context. If Google is going to be used as an argument for one name over the other - this seems to point towards "cool down" as the standard. ::Although I usually use cool down myself, I'm used to hearing both used interchangeably within my guild (maybe cool down slightly more often, but not by much); so it doesn't matter to me which we use here. Just adding some material for everyone else to discuss. --- Barek (talk • ) - 11:27, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :Barek, you might do better searching Guru, or some of the other forums. Both are used, aftercast meaning delay after skills, cooldown generally being a synonym for recharge or a dagger combo, Me/N RI/SB round or whatever, imo — Skuld 11:47, 4 October 2006 (CDT) ::The start of the thread used Google as the search engine, which is the only reason I stayed with Google on my search counts. Like I said, I'm used to hearing both used interchangeably - usually for the post skill use delay. --- Barek (talk • ) - 11:53, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :::I was only pointing out that aftercast is what people use. If you Google for '"cool down" OR cooldown "guild wars" -warcraft -wow' (try without the minuses if you think something is being unfairly cut out) you'll see that, in the first 100 results, not a single use is for the same thing aftercast refers to and when being used as a term for something in game, it's always synonymous with recharge. --Fyren 19:34, 4 October 2006 (CDT) "Aftercast delay" with a redirect from aftercast, a disambiguation on cool down containing a pointer to this article, and a note in the article saying that it's typically shortened to simply aftercast then? Covers all the bases with the least amount of confusion, and conforms to a higher standard of quality, without having to omit anything either. Merengue 12:03, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :This is fine with me. I want to be on record as stating that Post-activation delay is the best name for it and other possible names could be skill inertia or skill hangover. The point being to clarify that it's not only for "casting" it's for skill activation in general. For example, many ranger skills have the ranger stand there for a second, hunched down, looking at the target, as if in utter disbelief that shot actually made it. :) If no one goes ahead and does it in the next 24 hours (wanna make sure Fyren gets a chance to see this and respond), I'll do it. --Karlos 18:34, 4 October 2006 (CDT) ::I strongly oppose anything that does not have "aftercast" as the main article and term used in other articles. --Fyren 18:40, 4 October 2006 (CDT) :I landed here because I found some cryptic term "aftercast" listed in a skill page. I don't know or care what anyone thinks about it, I am English speaking (and over 7 years of higher education in engineering and technical writing...in English) as well as cosiderably fluent in 4 other languages... "Cool Down" makes absolute sense, aftercast is simply a made-up term which has no defined or logical meaning whatsoever (I thought the refering article would discuss some sort of bonus casting damage, otherwise I'd have not wasted my time coming to this page). IMHO English is complicated enough and has enough words that are synonymous with each other. There's a lot of people using this and other English sites who do not share my native tongue, why are "1337's" trying to confuse the language for them? If you want to be "1337", go make a "1337" site, write it in "1337". The average age of an Internet user these days is 33, and they generally have no clue what anything written in "1337" is. "Cool Down" is actually discussed in published guides and periodical articles regarding GuildWars, "Aftercast" is a grammatically imperfect term, created by those players who haven't managed to master the English language. GuildWars documentation writers are at fault for not defining this clearly, however there would still be the usual thousands who would neglect to read it, and the usual thousands who never managed to grasp English that would still make up terms to call it. The article should be called "Cool Down", and have redirects to it from anything that relates to it. —''The preceding unsigned comment was added by'' 24.235.218.64 (talk • ) 15:17, December 11, 2006 (CST). ::Although many words in English (aftereffect, afterlife, afterthought, etc.) would suggest that this term means "A cast following something else", there is precedent in the English language for "after(something)" to mean "the time following (something)" -- see "afternoon". However, since this is a rare exception, it's my opinion that this term needs, at most, a hyphen (see "after-dinner", "after-hours"). Perhaps "after-cast" would be a compromise that everyone could live with? Bcstingg 16:43, 13 December 2006 (CST) Looks like we have a winner! http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/articles/pvpprimer/20070221-gameeffects.php --72.194.82.197 18:48, 21 February 2007 (CST) Older talk Are you sure this is correct? see User:Murphyp/aftercast (talk) 08:24, 24 July 2006 (CDT) : Yep. --Vindexus 08:24, 24 July 2006 (CDT) ::Also confirming. --68.142.14.19 08:38, 24 July 2006 (CDT) :::I've been told that some PBAoE's do not have 1.75s but that they have .75s. I have yet to verify this information so it's something that should be done. --Vindexus 08:40, 24 July 2006 (CDT) ::::I think star burst and the whirlwinds don't. Also probably not grasping earth or bed of coals. Not certain on star burst. Don't know about healing burst, heh. --68.142.14.19 09:28, 24 July 2006 (CDT) ::is it safe to include Murphyp's research here? he did a lot of these long ago --Honorable Sarah image:Honorable_Icon.gif 10:21, 24 July 2006 (CDT) Using bed of coals (or whatever DoT) as a timer, you can get either two or three ticks of damage between a chained inferno/flame burst, but not one or four. So 2s < 3/4s + AC < 3s, meaning 5/4s < AC < 9/4s, at least for inferno or flame burst. I'd probably just call it 1.5s. Perhaps Fraps or a similar program could be used to capture at a certain framerate and then the number of (captured) frames could be counted. For example, use flame burst, then something slow enough to make the casting bar show, and then count the number of frames between the two. --68.142.14.19 10:58, 24 July 2006 (CDT) :i can confirm neither crystal wave nor aftershock have 1.75 second aftercast, i've chained both these skills in one (Dragon's Stomp) knockdown. --Honorable Sarah image:Honorable_Icon.gif 11:11, 24 July 2006 (CDT) ::I am absolutely certain aftershock has always had a long aftercast. I just tried the above test with crystal wave x2 and crystal wave plus aftershock. Results are the same as with flame burst plus inferno. --68.142.14.19 11:45, 24 July 2006 (CDT) :::I can confirm that Aftershock has a 1.75s aftercast. --Vindexus 15:34, 24 July 2006 (CDT) ::: 1,75 is TOOOOO.......LONG......PBAoE FTL Research The reasearch needed tag is to confirm all types of skills: * Attacks :* Warrior ::* Axe ::* Sword ::* Hammer :* Bow * Glyphs * Preparations * Rituals :* Ashes :* Spirits * Shouts * Signets * Spells :* Healing :* AoE :* PBAoE * Stances * Traps once you confirm an aftercast time, please note it after the type above with your name (~~~). If necessary, you can add skill types. (talk) 08:47, 24 July 2006 (CDT) Why would we want to confirm aftercast for things that are not spells? From what I've heard and from personal experience, nothing but spells have it. At the very least you can be sure that things like shouts, attacks, and stances don't have aftercast.--Theonemephisto 13:34, 24 July 2006 (CDT) :The 1/2s activation bow attacks actually have an "aftercast." I don't know about the warrior ones. --68.142.14.19 13:39, 24 July 2006 (CDT) ::Okay, granted. One thing I am sure of is that attacks with no activation time don't have an aftercast, as they just activate on next attack. After a bit of testing (attacking a suit of armor with the attack and seeing if I can move right after) with distracting blow and protector's strike (any other warrior attacks with activation times?) they don't have an aftercast. Also, you can chain both of them in 1 sec in any order. Uh, I'm changing it slightly as research is still inconclusive. Do skills like Flare and Needling Shot have aftercast? From experience it seems that they do not. In fact, I think the general consensus is that it varies between skills...? Interrupt attacks certainly have an aftercast, as do Savage Slash, but not Protector's Strike. --Silk Weaker 09:27, 27 September 2006 (CDT) :I kind of re-rewrote it, but it's a lot more like the previous version. Reversal and interrupts do not have a longer aftercast than normal. Savage slash has no aftercast (no attacks besides the ranger interrupts do, as I noted in the article). You can do savage, protector's just as fast as you can do protector's, savage (which is to say, with a .5s gap beween them). --Fyren 12:38, 27 September 2006 (CDT) :Flare does have an aftercast delay. -- Lightpl 06:18, 10 October 2006 (CDT) ::Do you mean it's longer than Lightning Strike or Reversal of fortune? --Karlos 06:35, 10 October 2006 (CDT) Moved from article This article definately needs reasearched... I took the time to test this via visuals on my end as well as taking guild mates to watch my spells being activated, take effect, and another spell cast... in which not only on my end did i see absolutely no delay nor did any others who where watching... in truth I activated one spell and qued another, after the casting time completed on the first the spell it immediately took effect and my character immediately began casting the second. The only explanation I possibly could have for some people's experiences that possibly resulted in this would be latancy issues. —''The preceding unsigned comment was added by'' 69.136.209.190 ( ) }. :If you use a spell and queue up another spell, the delay is very clear. When the activation finishes, the spell takes effect, but the next does not start immediately. --Fyren 23:33, 18 October 2006 (CDT) ::The main reason i realised there was aftercast was because of aftershock, cast it and then try to move straight away. Xeon 00:37, 19 October 2006 (CDT) Traps I think I have an example of aftercast delay's in traps. see Trapper's Speed talk namnatulco 11:24, 22 January 2007 (CST) :Every non-attack skill has aftercast, as the article says. --Fyren 11:42, 22 January 2007 (CST) Are we sure it's really .75 seconds? Look at the third paragraph here http://www.guildwars.com/competitive/articles/pvpprimer/20070207-mechanicstacking.php, and it says that aftercast is one second. --Wizardboy777 16:36, 8 February 2007 (CST) :It also says if you're interrupted you still have to wait out the aftercast. Both statements are wrong. --Fyren 01:30, 9 February 2007 (CST) 1.75 v 1.25 I'm unsure of who made the original edit to add 1.25 or 1.75 however the information was taken from the PvP Primer: Miscellaneous Game Effects that was posted on the official site today. Copied word for word from there it reads : Point-blank area-of-effect (PBAOE) spells have either 1.25 or 1.75 second aftercasts. Shadow Step spells have 0 aftercast, to allow for a teleport and subsequent chain of attack skills. That being the source would it not be appropriate to list both in the article? Lojiin 15:59, 21 February 2007 (CST) :It wouldn't exactly be the first time info from there was utterly wrong. --Fyren 16:09, 21 February 2007 (CST) ::I didn't actually conduct any research, but why are you acting, like they are never utterly right? :P — Poki#3 , 17:23, 21 February 2007 (CST) :::You can see plenty of ridicule if you go back through the talk pages for news posts that link to their attempts to explain game mechanics. --Fyren 17:52, 21 February 2007 (CST) Reduction I have found, and I am releasing my own secret although others may have found this to be true, that between over half to just before 100% or thereabouts before you finish casting the spell, eg for a spell of small cast time of 1 sec you can easily start just over half a second into or for a 3 second spell you can start at around 2.6-2.7seconds into, you can move away from the casting position by holding down the mouse camera world view button(RMB for RHM or MB2) and then strafing or moving in a uniform direction away from the point of initial cast for a fraction of a second then tap your run hotkey(still holding down RMB) once you break free(less than a fraction of a second) and run you can move freely(a quick flick left and right of the mouse can help you free yourself easier in combination to aforementioned, still strafing and with free run on, ie not forward key but free run). Generally looks cool when you pull it off on ele spells such as djinn's haste for example. I have found that if you try this almost directly after casting a spell of a small length of duration that you can pull it off and depart from the scene almost as the spell is finished casting if not sometimes much before, effectively becoming a 3/4/sec casting no after cast spell(based on 1sec casting time for this example). This seems to be dependent of each casting length duration of spells, I would try to map this better but cbf. If done correctly, and believe me, you will be able to connect spells while strafing to ignore the after cast in general and very efficiently. I use it best, IMHO, as monk in AB. Must be quick though when you decide to try this or you can miss it early and interrupt your own spell or end up holding ground and awaiting after cast, the window is there and I abuse it often. But if you just sit there and cast for scientific results, guess what? go to the isle of the shameless and be pathetic ^^ Confused_Enemy 203.59.189.244 17:30, 15 June 2007 (CDT) :I think I know what you're talking about but are you sure isn't just rubberbanding? M s4 18:04, 15 June 2007 (CDT) ::Very much so I guess in part. I believe it has much to do with O'Briens networking code with relation to latency implementation and QoS of the threading pool -commands. I could delve into network programming deeper but meh ;P I found it to work to a similar effect in various warcraft 3 scenarios, to which he was lead programmer fuzz or something...C_E 203.59.189.244 18:41, 15 June 2007 (CDT) :::You sure know your stuff. By the way, I've noticed sometimes that when I activate a skill (i think i am using 1 second cast most of the time) right after I res, the actual thing happens and it starts recharging, but the animation for the skill is delayed. I can't replicate at the moment, but maybe this is related? M s4 20:41, 19 June 2007 (CDT) ::::I've seen the same thing too. -- Nova -- ( ) 11:20, 23 June 2007 (CDT) Preparations If you use a preparation and queue another skill, the normal aftercast is there. It can easily be seen by using a preparation and queuing another skill that shows an activation bar; the bar for the second skill will not appear immediately after the preparation's bar fills. --Fyren 06:43, 23 July 2007 (CDT) :I just tested all preparations on whether they have aftercast or not, and came up as follows: ::Preparations from Core and Prophecies have no aftercast delay (eg. Apply Poison, Read the Wind, Choking Gas, Marksman's Wager) ::Preparations from Factions and Nightfall does have aftercast delay (eg. Expert's Dexterity, Trapper's Focus, Barbed Arrows, Glass Arrows) :::Thanks for looking into it further. --Fyren 11:50, 23 July 2007 (CDT) Rubberbanding and Skill Usage I've been running into a few.. well.. glitches. Or something of the like. Basically, most of the cases in which this has happened to me have been high-lag situations. I find myself able to run out and use PBAoE skills, and deal damage with those skills, but the second I use a targeted skill, I immediately rubberband back to the beginning. Also, it doesn't appear as though I'm able to suffer non-AoE damage while this is occurring. I've been hesitant to bring this up due to the easily abusable nature of this phenomenon, but I've been hoping for an explanation of it as well. If anyone would be able to research this and let me know, I'd be extremely grateful. I'd do so myself, but my computer's relatively low-end. 68.78.32.15 19:53, 9 September 2007 (CDT) (Forgot to sign in.) cedave( ) 19:54, 9 September 2007 (CDT) PBAoE's had their Aftercast removed mostly. Dunno if any PBAoE's still have it, tho --- -- (s)talkpage 20:19, 6 March 2008 (UTC) :According to Point Blank Area of Effect, every PBAoE that was noted to have a longer Aftercast is mentioned in the update... — Poki#3 , 21:05, 6 March 2008 (UTC) Completely Removed This Concept In the Monk section of this Developer Update this sentence caught my eye: "Symbol of Wrath and Kirin's Wrath no longer have an aftercast, as we've completely removed this concept." What do you suppose they meant by that? A literal interpretation would be that they are removing aftercast delay from the game all together. If they were intending to only be referring to those two skills, they have an odd way of wording it. Shadowlance 18:39, 15 May 2008 (UTC) :Well, it exists for some Junundu abilities: Burning Breath thingy, Junundu Siege, Leave Junundu, Junundu Wail. It is certainly not removed from the game --- -- (s)talkpage 18:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC) ::They are referring to the LONG aftercast that most PBAoE had. — Poki#3 , 20:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC) :::Junundu skills have the Looooong, Loooong aftercast. --- -- (s)talkpage 12:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC) ::::Those are very special skills. If you really need to list them all... Still, they have nothing to do with PBAoE's Long Aftercast. — Poki#3 , 22:10, 12 July 2008 (UTC) Bulls Strike(and related skills) I have noticed very often that even though you can't move during an aftercast, skills such as bulls strike will meet the requirement if you TRY to move. This has to be a bug, any other thoughts on it? :I think it's just lag. — Poki#3 , 04:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC) 0 activation What about Dolyak Signet and Signet of Mystic Speed? --Gimmethegepgun 05:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC) :Signet, not a Skill (skill type). — Poki#3 , 05:36, 12 July 2008 (UTC) ::Well, it's hard to know which it is talking about, especially since it doesn't link to that. Besides, shouts and stances have no aftercast, and they aren't skill (skill type)s Whoops those are mentioned at the top --Gimmethegepgun 05:39, 12 July 2008 (UTC) :::Shouts and Stances are noted in the first line of the article. If you want to re-write things to make it more clear do it. It could use it. I just don't have any idea how to shake things up :/ — Poki#3 , 05:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC) Captain Obvious, am i ? I don't really know if it's necessary to point out but within this period after the cast you can't either activate skills ( yes we already know that ... ) or even switch weapons/armor pieces. This appeared to me as I casted my 55-enchantments with headpiece-switching, couldn't change my headpiece right after Blessed Aura had finished to cast. No queueing up if you prefer the short version. Does it have to be mentionned too ? Because the article only mention skills or movement... GW-Topinambour 18:12, 13 August 2008 (UTC) :Seems warranted to me. --Shadowcrest 18:13, 13 August 2008 (UTC) Touch skills I seem to remember touch skills not having aftercast, but its not mentioned on the page so i went and tested iron palm palm strike and MoD says it took 3 secs so touch skills have aftercast; so heres the question, if i hit sum1 with iron palm kding for 2 secs then start an attack (falling spider) after the .75 aftercast and the attack takes 1.33 secs, 2.08 secs have passed then so why do i hit them while they r still considered knocked down - Rabus 00:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC) :Because it checks for knockdown at the beginning of the activation of the skill, at least in this case, with multi-targeting and non targeting skills sometimes it does funny things.--Łô√ë îğá†ħŕášħ 00:53, 30 November 2008 (UTC) ::Eh? so with an IAS i could get off an attack and then use falling and it would hit? how does this work with holy/stonesoul strike? - Rabus 13:33, 30 November 2008 (UTC) :::Afaik those have to end when the target is knocked down, as I've never been able to do KD -> wand -> Strike. (T/ ) 05:12, 1 December 2008 (UTC) I wish there was no aftercast on anything... :If your wish came true, then: boom goes the balance!-- [[User:El_Nazgir|'El_Nazgir']] 16:55, 31 May 2009 (UTC) ::Then let the spam begin! Would just be nice to click skills and not have to wait another 3/4s after locked out. :::Without aftercast, flare and the other flare-ish skills (not ice spear, it didn't get buffed when all the others did) might be decent --Gimmethegepgun 02:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC) Aftercast time with Fast Casting and HCT? * Does Fast Casting have any impact on aftercast? * Does HCT or HSR impact aftercast? The names imply that they only affect casting times (not anything that might happen afterward). On the other hand, we know that ANet hasn't been always named things consistently with the relevant behavior. If, as suspected, Fast Casting doesn't affect aftercast, then it's even more horribly underpowered (as a primary attribute) than I feared. Instead of FC=15 mesmers reducing the casting time of 4 1-sec spells from 4 seconds to 2 seconds (50% shorter), they are reducing 7 seconds to 5 (only 28% shorter). And the overall reduction is even more pitiful at lower ranks (around 19% at FC = 9). — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 10:10, October 24, 2009 (UTC) :Nothing alters aftercast delay. And FC is not underpowered. Note that 28% SHORTER (I corrected what you said, for it was miserably wrong) is 38.9% FASTER. Which means it's a permanent Frenzy for spells without having the negatives --Gimmethegepgun 18:05, October 24, 2009 (UTC) :Oh, and my mistake. It's a permanent spell Frenzy for ONE-SECOND casts. Longer cast times get even more benefit --Gimmethegepgun 18:08, October 24, 2009 (UTC) :: Please don't change what I write. If it's wrong (even if grievously inaccurate), say so. Leave it to me to correct. Thank you. :: As regards to timing, if there was no aftercast, FC=15 would reduce the time of casting 4 single-second spells in a row (and being ready to act again) from 4 seconds (= 4 x 1 second) to 2 seconds. That's 2 seconds faster, more quickly, and shorter (depending on the point of comparison). Perhaps, it's safer to describe it as a 50% reduction, i.e. in this example, one could cast twice as many spells. :: However, with aftercast, only the 1 second cast times are reduced; the aftercast cannot be altered. That means the normal time for casting the four spells above is 7 seconds (= 4 * + 0.75). The mesmer with FC=15 will take 5 seconds for the same activity ( = 4 * + 0.75), which is still 2 seconds faster, but it only a 28% reduction in the overall time it takes to perform these actions. Ignoring recharge, they can only cast one additional spell (with a bit leftover). :: I'm not saying that Fast Casting is useless, I'm saying it's underpowered relative to the investment. You are, of course, free to disagree. ::* Many important Mesmer skills have quarter-second cast times; this is dwarfed by the aftercast and Fast Casting doesn't improve things. ::* Fast Casting helps considerably in invoking the first skill. Unfortunately, over a longer battle, the aftercasting ends up reducing the relative benefits. ::* If an Elementalist invests half their attribute points and a Superior Rune in Energy Storage, they roughly double their available energy. ::* For the same investment in Expertise, Rangers can double the number of (relevant) skills they can invoke. ::* Necromancers need to see only 3 fleshy corpses expire to double their available energy, with similar investment in Soul Reaping. :: (In passing, notice that 28% faster is a reasonable phrasing to describe the impact: Twice as many skills in the same period of time is twice as fast; 5 skills instead of 4 in the same period is equivalent to casting 25% faster. I accept that shorter could also be applied, using a different and equally defensible logic.) — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:14, October 24, 2009 (UTC) :::Interrupts. That's all that matters. 01:54, October 25, 2009 (UTC) ::::Actually, faster, more quickly, and shorter are all different, and not interchangeable at all in a technical term. Shorter is measured in units of time per , faster is a per unit of time, and quickly is technically acceleration, which is a per unit of time squared. They're all related to each other, yes, but not the same things.For instance Frenzy: 33% faster means 4/3 the normal speed, which, when inversed, means that it takes 3/4 the time to do that something. Meaning It takes 25% less time to do that something (attack), but you will do 33% more in the same amount of time. This shit is important to know! :P ::::However, you have to realize that this kind of stuff has an extremely large number of relations you have to consider. The most obvious is that it takes less time to get the casts, in, meaning you get more casts in in the same amount of time. However, if it takes X amount of casts in order to deal with a threat under ideal conditions, then obviously it takes a shorter amount of time to get X number of casts in, which means they have less time to hurt you or do anything else useful. Then consider non-ideal situations: they're trying to keep themself alive with healing. Their rate of healing conflicts with your rate of damage. Increasing the rate of casts increases the rate of damage, which helps fight their rate of healing, causing an exponential decrease in the amount of time it takes to kill them. And if it's not healing-over-time, but rather larger packets, then it can be prone to have huge jumps in that exponential growth as well, because the rate is not a constant rate, but rather broken up into large jumps. Bypassing a jump would cut in where the reality is below the average. ::::Oh, and Expertise at that level does FAR more than double their energy supply. Remember these related rates? Yeah. Because the cost is lower, the level of energy regen they have is also effectively doubled. So their energy is effectively doubled AND they effectively gain 3 pips of energy regen as well. And if you compare their rate of energy use to the rate of gain, then further minor decreases in energy use vastly increase the amount of time it takes to run out of energy, and in ideal situations can make it completely sustainable. Exponential growth at it's best :) --Gimmethegepgun 08:20, October 25, 2009 (UTC) ::::: Faster, more quickly, and shorter can be equivalent depending on the context. (A train that is faster reaches its destination more quickly in a shorter amount of time.) You and I are not comparing the same things, thus our context isn't the same, so are usage isn't identical. Since I doubt either of us will agree on that point, let's try to ignore the particular language choices that we are making and focus on the main issue of whether Fast Casting is underpowered. ::::: For Expertise, I was considering how many skills can be invoked (not how much energy was used). Either way, it seems like you agree that Expertise is awesome. IMO, FC pales in comparison. ::::: I completely agree with you that these things are complex; I agree with your list of factors (although perhaps not completely in exponential decrease in time it takes to kill). Thus, FC isn't at all useless. On the other hand, I think getting one extra 1-sec spell every four seconds isn't as useful as the near-unlimited energy granted to Rangers/Necromancers or the gobs of bluebar granted to Elementalists. ::::: Felix mentioned interrupts. Casting a single interrupt in 0.125 seconds instead of 0.25 seconds is nice in PvE (especially if one has slow reaction times); it's stellar in PvP (since you aren't competing with the AI). However, the aftercast prevents casting a second interrupt for another 0.75 seconds. Since your interrupted opponent doesn't suffer aftercast, that allows them to get off their next spell unless (a) it has a long casting time or (b) you invoke another interrupt without waiting to see if they will cast again. You have to be an extremely skilled mesmer to take advantage of this marginally extra time. In contrast, you do not have to be extremely skilled to take advantage of Expertise, Soul Reaping, or Energy Storage. In my opinion, that's another good proxy for measuring its relative power. ::::: As I see it, FC helps you get the jump on your opponent, so its impact is greatest when the battle begins. Over time, that advantage decreases, while the bonuses of other primaries tend to remain the same (or, in some cases, improve). — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 19:13, October 25, 2009 (UTC) ::::::Chances are, if you smacked a spell with an interrupt, it will mess them up more than just the loss of the one spell. If they're an offensive type, then they will likely have queued up another one to chain with that spell (SF->GG?) and so they will end up casting the second when it's not useful without the first activating. Or you can pretty much bypass the issue by using Power Block :P But yeah, FC is not very useful for interrupts because they're just so damn short. Though I BELIEVE that if you get 1/16 second cast time, it's considered "instant" and you don't get aftercast. Or at least it doesn't stop continuous emote animations (monks spraying off Glimmer while dancing) --Gimmethegepgun 19:39, October 25, 2009 (UTC) :::::::Cast time is many times more important than aftercast time. A two second cast time with no aftercast wouldn't be nearly as useful as a one second cast time with a one second aftercast. Usually it wouldn't be as useful as a one second cast time with a three second aftercast. :::::::While far from useless, I'd agree that fast casting could use a buff. It actually did get such a buff when they made it shorten signet use times. I don't think reducing the aftercast is the way to go about it, though, as it wouldn't be terribly useful--and it would be less useful to mesmers than it would to, say, elementalists or monks. Maybe making fast casting reduce recharge times somewhat would be appropriate. Quizzical 19:52, October 25, 2009 (UTC)